an aesthetic reaction

Sometimes I think I react to the way words are put together even before I react to their meaning--the timing of these reactions can be minute, but I think it's there nonetheless. I've never really pinned this feeling down before, never stopped to notice how it happens, but now... I read this exert from Helen Cixous' (With) Ou l'art de I'innocence ( (With) Or the Art of Innocence):

"And in telling you this, I am trembling in pain in joy and I am crying in terror, as if I had dared to want to tell god his real name, which is not simply god: for "god" is the word that enables us to avoid speaking to god directly. For ever since the beginning we have guessed that if we ever managed to pronouce just once the true name of God, all the truth dispersed in all languages and all the truth of lives that is concentrated in the body and reserved for love, would shatter in a single breath, just as if god, who ever since the beginning has not spoken to anyone had always made our name resound in His language, and once the true name rang out, all words in all languages would become unusable, so weak, false, bare, impotent, unforgettably merely words, the straw of thought, that we would no long wish to speak."

I wasn't sure after I read it what it meant, but before I even realized that I didn't understand it all, I was pulling out my blue highlighter and coating the page in ink...there was something there, an aesthetic reaction, a movement of beauty inside of me to the beauty of those words working together--is that weird? It feels weird, strange, abstract and untouchable. When I realized I didn't really understand it, I started to wonder if I really agreed with all of it, and the feeling became a taste lingering on my tongue.

Restful homecoming?

Coming home is culture shock. I've spent the last four years growing more and more used to the calm and quiet of college life (I'm serious) and less and less accustomed to waking at 6:30 a.m. to arguments over whose Nerf gun is whose and who had it first and who started it. I love my family dearly, but after a day of dodging little brothers who hurtle themselves like small air-to-surface missiles through the kitchen, cringing at the constant shrieks of my five-year-old brother with autism, and absorbing the mixture of the TV movie, the CD from the kitchen, the CD from the upstairs bedroom, three brothers wrestling in the living room...I'm tempted to sprint for my car, pull my hair out, and scream bloody murder all the way back to my quiet apartment.

And I'm glad to have my noisy siblings--all seven of them. How could I not when my sixteen-year-old sister told my mom that she loves the conversations we have, when my little brothers count the days until I come home on break, when my second youngest brother asked if my graduation from college meant that I would "come to live at home again."

So, I scream quietly inside, roll my eyes at my mom, go sit in my room to bring the noise down to a dull roar, and laugh at them--my crazy, nuts family. God help those who come mentally unprepared. :)

Non-Writing Theory R&R

I was checking out the Faith in Fiction blog and followed a link to Mark Bertrand's blog which had very interesting and thought-provoking ideas (this is the first time I've ever created a link this way...woohoo!). And I think my Writing Theory class is inflitrating my every thought because my immediate reaction was to Resonate and Resist (my WT buddies: how funny is that?).

But anyway, I "resonate" with his ideas to some extent, especially in light of all the philosopher-ing we've done in Writing Theory about the importance and impact of language on the way we think, our culture, our presuppositions, our beliefs... This also makes me think about the way my own beliefs are forming (I'm finding many of the popular debate "theological" ones of mine are still in utero at the moment) and what "language" is attracting me to this or that. And in light of the formation of my beliefs about various theological issues, I also liked the way he described the "patchwork" of theological and philosophical ideas--because I've found that I hate being forced to pick one side or the other (e.g. Calvinism or Arminianism...). There are entirely too many issues packed into one word for me to say that yes, I'm this or I'm that. The "borrowing" thing feels like it helps me form a bigger theology than cramming everything into some pre-established form. But...hmm. More thinking to do.

intellectual venting session

Sometimes I think my mind is going to explode--I've finally discovered how much I love to think critically, and it blows me away. I'm numb with thought, with possibility.

That sounds like such a romanticized view of learning, but it's true. I'm starting to look at my classes with eyes that are looking for more than just a good grade or getting the credit over with so I can graduate and move on with life--I'm starting to love learning for how it might stimulate and change my thinking. It's getting harder to sit in those classes that appear to be solely for the purpose of getting students to regurgitate the information dictated to them. They're boring!

Society seems to have reduced the value of education to placing yourself in an environment of fact dispensing and fact consuming. If you know enough about everything, you'll be smarter and able to make more money and drive a better car and own a bigger house and be a good American. This is good to a point--how could you not learn about history without knowing the specifics of the American Revolution? Yet, anyone who seriously studies history would undoubtedly think it a travesty to only emphasize this type of knowledge ! The value of studying history is in critically analyzing the society, decisions, politic, cultures, etc. of the past and incorporating those ideas into the here and now. Critical thinking is essential to developing the mind. I feel like this is a dying idea. Other things have become more important--pursuing academia is seen as a means to a career and little else. What has happened to the love of learning that caused people to become disciples of Plato and Aristotle and Socrates? It seems as if learning like this has become impractical and thus expendable. But it is through this type learning that we can impact our society and realize where we are and have been in order to shape the future.

And I realize I'm reacting here, and these statements are sweeping generalizations. But I'm frustrated that I can't convey the reason I want to pursue grad school to my mom or friends that haven't gone to college or even those that do. I tell them the reasons in halting fragments that I've related before in other discussions and conversations that stirred this passion and life in me, and I know that now they sound impractical, a paper-thin reason to their ears because they sometimes sound (and have sounded) impractical to mine. Why should I go into more debt to fill my head with philosophers and intellectual writings and theories and rhetoric? Because I want to learn...I want to redeem in a small way the Christian academic....I'm passionate about learning...they make me think. Because I want to.

But I want them to understand. Some of me wants them to understand simply so I'll feel better about the decision; part of me wants everyone to approve wholeheartedly so that I'll know it was the right decision--because if everyone agrees, that decision can't be wrong--right? And I'm being sarcastic, but this is the mind-set I'm trying to scrap from my mind like stubborn mussels from a ship's hull.

But mostly this whole process is scary because the world and God are turning out to be bigger than I could have ever imagined and hoped or dreamed they might be. I'm glad they are bigger, but I'm afraid I won't know what to do with that when I've lived with such a small world and small God for so long. At the same time, I feel euphoric because realizing the scope of reality is more than breathtaking and I'm realizing even more that my mind will never be able to fully conceive it. But I want to know as much as I can understand and continually understand into a deeper layer--because that is growth.

In the movies

Tonight a whole group of us got together to hang out--complete with a potluck and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. (If you haven't watched the movie, I pretty much spoil it here, so don't read on if you don't know the end) It was very thought provoking conversation (as it always seems to be with this group), everything from hyperreality to funny stories to wondering if it were really possible to write a compelling conversion story.

Apart from my mind whirling with the subjects we touched on, I can't pull myself out of the movie. But that's pretty normal for me. I don't just watch movies, I'm in them. If I can't connect with the characters emotionally, I'll be bored and probably not finish the movie. But if I watch and connect, I start to care deeply about the characters and their stories...which is why I usually can't keep my mouth shut, and before I know it I'm yelling at Joel to run from the evil spotlight because it'll take away his memories or pleading with Clementine to see that Patrick is a sick, twisted kid who is using someone else's words to manipulate her. Their stories become real to me even though I know they aren't, and I found myself wanting to laugh with delight when Clementine and Joel finally reconcile...

I wonder why, sometimes--why these movies affect me so deeply. Maybe it's because the emotional part of me is so intrinsically part of how I see anything and to separate myself from even an imaginary person's story means not caring. Maybe it's because I hope that if the story ends well in the movie, my story will do the same--even though I know life isn't like Hollywood or fairy tales, I still think it might be somewhere in the leftover part of my child's heart.

And then I let myself feel because when I think about it that way, I'd rather err on the side of caring too much than not caring at all because I want that child sense of wonder and abandon. To live my life with abandon...maybe that's dangerous...but I think what I'm looking for is to be able to live a life of delight and not be afraid to show it. Sometimes I think we are all afraid to show it.

Simulacrum, simulacra...

Ok, so I really don't have time for this (homework calls...no, it screams...), but this epigram from a reading in Writing Theory is bubbling like a mad witch's brew in my head.

"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true." --Ecclesiastes

First, for all those like me who had no clue on God's green earth what a "simulacrum" is, it's an image, a representation, an insubstantial form or semblence of something: trace. Second...what does that mean? Still pondering that one. Third...where in Ecclesiastes is that? Skimmed for it, but no luck. I'm sure my questions will be answered tomorrow, but I've read the darn thing twenty times already trying to unravel it. Thinking is way too much fun. :)

fragrance of beauty

Where to go from here...an odd way to begin, but that's the thought in my head tonight. Things haven't been great (see last blog post...I just re-read it myself...ha!); confusion...disconnect...lost passion...I'm finding I can't live well with a loss of passion. The popular Christian mantra is not to rely on feelings...stick with what you know; when times get tough, rely on what you know... True to a point, but that only works for so long with me...I can use the garden wall to prop me up, and I appreciate the bricks; they are concrete and solid and I can hold them. But without the beauty, without the stirrings of deep wonder and love and awe, I wither, slowly. Sometimes you know God is real, but you need to feel it to change, to move. Sometimes I need the scent of the garden to turn to it, to remember that it is there, it is real--that it is beautiful and waiting only for me to enter.